UFT members came together in every borough on the union’s Day of Action on May 6 to demand improvements to Tier 6 of the state pension system.

In Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, members took part in simultaneous after-school rallies, while members on Staten Island held in-school actions and those in the Bronx passed out “Fix Tier 6” flyers at three transit hubs.

The Day of Action was part of a coordinated set of mobilizations by NYSUT locals across the state on the sixth of each month in 2025 to keep the pressure on Albany to bring Tier 6 benefits (for educators hired after April 1, 2012) in line with Tier 4 benefits. Roughly 52% of in-service New York City public school educators belong to Tier 6, according to the Teachers’ Retirement System. Pensions are governed by state law; they are not a subject of collective bargaining.

The union’s top demand this year is to allow public school educators in Tier 6 to retire with an unreduced pension at age 55 with 30 years of service, just like Tier 4 members. Currently, they must wait until age 63.

The lack of parity between Tier 4 and Tier 6 is making it more difficult to recruit and retain public school educators at a time of a growing staffing shortage, UFT President Michael Mulgrew said at the rally outside the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building in Harlem.

Noting that May 6 was also National Teacher Appreciation Day, he delivered this message to state lawmakers: “So don’t tell us how much you love us. Show us how much you love us!”

Beneath the elevated 6 train in Parkchester in the Bronx, educators in Tiers 4 and 6 handed out flyers to passersby, chanted “Fix Tier 6!” and called on drivers to support them. “You like teachers?” Adrian Jones, a special education teacher at PS 47 in the Bronx, asked a driver. “Honk for me!”

Mike Loverde

Rich Sherman (center, facing camera), the chapter leader at Validus Preparatory Academy in the Bronx, spreads the “Fix Tier 6” message to passersby in the Bronx.

Anel Martinez, a speech pathologist at the Adlai E. Stevenson Educational Campus in the Bronx, said she wasn’t aware of the differences in pension benefits when she took the job in 2014 in her 30s. She learned a few years ago that she would have to work more than 30 years to get the same benefits as her parents — both retired teachers.

“Our quality of life really matters,” Martinez said. “I want to be able to enjoy the work I’ve put in. I really care about my students, I care about my job and I want to be able to enjoy and have a life after I retire.”

Jonathan Lustberg, the chapter leader at JHS 259 in Brooklyn, said better Tier 6 benefits would give teachers a reason to make teaching a career.

“Look how many teachers are burning out and leaving,” he said. “We have a teacher and paraprofessional shortage for a reason: The work is extremely difficult, and we’re not compensated enough for it. We’re not taken care of.”

Many Tier 4 members, including Chapter Leader Andrea Maniatis, who teaches at PS 143 in Corona, Queens, came out for the Day of Action to support their newer colleagues. “Our previous brothers and sisters in Tiers 1, 2 and 3 did it for us, and I think it’s important that we do it for Tier 6 members as well,” Maniatis said at the rally outside Queens Borough Hall.

Tier 4 member Dylan Tramm, who teaches at the Manhattan Center for Science and Mathematics, said at the Harlem rally that newer colleagues deserve the same pension benefits that he has.

“They’re teaching hard, they show up to work every day and they’re struggling,” he said. “It isn’t right.”

Tier 6 member Aly Carlotti, who teaches physical education at PS 8 in Brooklyn, said she seized the opportunity to speak out with her fellow members at the rally.

“It feels really good to attend these rallies and to be around others who are like-minded and to be reminded that we can make a difference,” Carlotti said. “If we don’t do it, who will?”